"I FORGIVE" - A NEW VENERABLE

Another recently named as Venerable is SISTER LEONELLA SGORBATI,  an Italian sister  who was murdered in Somalia.

Sister Leonella was born in 1940 in Gazzola, Italy.  As a teenager she wished to become a missionary sister, but her mother did not approve the choice and asked her to wait until she was twenty. She then joined the Consolata Missionary Sisters in San Fre, Cuneo in 1963, making her perpetual vows in 1972.

During this time she took  nursing studies in England (1966–1968), and in 1970 was appointed to Kenya where she was until 1983.

In mid-1983, Venerable Leonella started advanced studies in nursing and in 1985 became the principal tutor at the school of nursing attached to Nkubu Hospital, Meru, Kenya.

In November 1993 she was elected regional superior of the Sisters in Kenya, a duty she performed for six years. After a sabbatical year, in 2001 she spent several months in Mogadishu, looking at the possibility of setting up a nursing school in the hospital run by the SOS Children's Village organization.  Hermann Gmeiner School of Registered Community Nursing opened in 2002, with Sister Leonella in charge. The first 34 nurses graduated from the school that year, awarded certificates and diplomas by the World Health Organization because Somalia  had no government since 1991.

Venerable Leonella was keen to train tutors for the nursing school. She returned to Kenya with three of her newly graduated nurses, to register them for further training at a medical training college. She faced difficulties in obtaining her own re-entry visa to Mogadishu, due to the new rules of the Islamic courts that now controlled the city and its environs. She managed to return to Mogadishu on 13 September 2006.

Four days later she was gunned down outside her children's hospital. Her bodyguard, Mohamed Osman Mahamud, was also killed. Two gunmen emerged from behind nearby taxis and kiosks and shot her in the back after about 30 years of aid work in Africa. She was rushed to the SOS Hospital but died shortly after. Her last words apparently were Italian: "Perdono; perdono." (“I forgive; I forgive.”)

This is the most authentic Christian testimony, a peaceful sign of contradiction which shows the victory of love over hatred..